Skilled persons in several disciplines desire to use tape measures and clipboards in rapid continuity. This occurs because of the need to promptly write down numbers from the tape before memories fade. In the field, the clipboard serves as a convenient writing surface for recording dimensions of things measured. Among the practitioners so involved are real estate appraisers and salespersons, contractors and construction trades people, insurance underwriters and adjusters and law enforcement officers. Unfortunately everyone requires both hands to use a tape measure. Therefore to keep the clipboard close by, it is common practice to put it under one's arm while measuring. This is far from ideal. The arm must often be raised to work around an obstruction while keeping the tape taut. This may allow the clipboard to fall to the ground. In any event, attempting to carry the clipboard while using the tape measure inhibits movement and interferes with proper use of the tape measure. With conventional devices an alternative procedure is to not carry the clipboard while measuring. Time must then be taken to abruptly separate the measuring operation from the recording operation. This increases the risk of not remembering nor recording information correctly. This invites costly mistakes.
The subject invention avoids the shortcomings of the prior art by incorporating the tape measure into a case, the cover of which also serves as a clipboard. Thus a person may with one hand hold both the tape and the writing surface and have the other hand free for operating the tape crank and writing down measurements. There is no longer the necessity of first manipulating the tape and then the clipboard because my invention has combined the two mechanisms into one unit.